Southern California gas prices soar above $4 a gallon

Unleaded gasoline starts at $4.53 a gallon, with premium unleaded selling for $4.69, at the Chevron station at the corner of La Crescenta and Honolulu avenues in Montrose on Tuesday. Prices have been on the rise for the past week at area gas stations.
Keith Birmingham — Staff Photographer

A customer purchases gas Tuesday at the Mobil station at the corner of Diamond Bar Boulevard and Golden Springs Drive in Diamond Bar, where a gallon of regular unleaded sells for $4.79.
Photo by Mike Mullen

Southland gas prices have risen dramatically in recent days as Easter weekend approaches, and one industry expert figures they’ll remain above $4 a gallon until September.

The average price for a gallon of regular gas in Los Angeles County hit $4.30 Tuesday, up 17 cents from a week ago and up 26 cents from a month ago, according to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report.

The Inland Empire saw a similar gain. Monday’s average price was $4.24 a gallon, up 16 cents for the week and up 24 cents from a month ago. California’s average price for regular was $4.18 a gallon Tuesday, topped only by Hawaii’s average price of $4.31 a gallon.

“I think it will level off now, but prices won’t fall below $4 a gallon until September,” said Bob van der Valk, senior editor for the Bakken Oil Business Journal. “It’s because of the lack of supply ... there’s just no backup supply.”

Jeffrey Spring, a spokesman for the Automobile Club of Southern California, linked the price hikes to several factors.

“Most of our refineries should be through with the turnaround maintenance that’s involved when they convert from winter-grade to summer-grade gas,” he said. “But two refineries — the Chevron refinery in El Segundo and the Exxon Mobil refinery in Torrance — will still be down for a couple more weeks.”

Van der Valk said the Tesoro Golden Eagle Refinery in Martinez is also experiencing problems. Those issues have served to reduce California’s supply of gasoline. Refineries are also exporting more gas overseas, Spring said, which further erodes California’s in-state supply. Spring also noted that ethanol costs have risen because producers are having a hard time getting enough tanker cars to move their product by rail.

“Many of those cars have been diverted to move oil from the Bakken Reserve in North Dakota,” he said.

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California has 20 refineries that collectively produce about 42 million gallons of gas per day.

The state’s refineries produced more than 6.4 million barrels of gas for in-state use for the week ended April 4, according to the California Energy Commission. That was down 4.1 percent from the previous week but up 2.3 percent from the same period a year ago.

Production of non-California gas for export rose 35.8 percent for the week ended April 4 to more than 1 million barrels, the commission reported. Year-over-year production of gas for export rose 19.5 percent.

“You get used to prices going up around the holidays, but it’s still frustrating,” the 60-year-old Pasadena resident said. “When prices get this high you have to adjust your budget. You don’t go out to eat as much, or you don’t buys gifts and flowers for the girlfriend.”

Don Garrison is also feeling the squeeze. Garrison, who owns Simply Discount Furniture in Santa Clarita, said his company makes about 50 deliveries a week throughout the Santa Clarita Valley, Antelope Valley, Ventura and Los Angeles.

“It’s definitely affected us, but we haven’t passed that along to our customers yet,” he said. “We’re trying to absorb the costs to keep our prices down. But it really depends on the amount of time that the prices stay up. If they stay up for say a month ... then we’ll have to adjust our delivery charge.”

Playa del Rey Florists is losing money on its deliveries, owner Lance Williams said. The company does about 130 deliveries a week.

“It’s very hard because it comes so fast and there’s nothing you can do to really plan for it,” he said. “It’s almost a non-recoupable item because there is only so much someone is willing to pay for delivery.”

On Tuesday, the cheapest Los Angeles-area price could be found at an Arco station at 15705 Nordhoff St. in North Hills, which posted regular at $3.98 a gallon. But prices at some of the region’s other outlets were alarmingly high.

A Chevron station in Los Angeles and a Mobil station in North Hollywood both were selling regular for $5.19 a gallon. And scores of other locations listed regular at $4.89 or higher.

“We really didn’t think prices would get this high,” Spring said. “We’ll just have to hang on tight to our wallets because we’re over $4 a gallon by a significant amount.”